XII.
THE LOBSTER-QUADRILLE.
Did you ever play at Croquet? There are large wooden balls, painted with different colours, that you have to roll about; and arches of wire, that you have to send them through; and great wooden mallets, with long handles, to knock the balls about with.
Now look at the picture, and you’ll see that Alice has just been playing a Game of Croquet.
“But she couldn’t play, with that great red what’s-its-name in her arms! Why, how could she hold the mallet?”
Why, my dear Child, that great red what’s-its-name (its real name is “a Flamingo”) is the mallet! In this Croquet-Game, the balls were live Hedge-hogs——you know a hedge-hog can roll itself up into a ball?——and the mallets were live Flamingos!
So Alice is just resting from the Game, for a minute, to have a chat with that dear old thing, the Duchess: and of course she keeps her mallet under her arm, so as not to lose it.
“But I don’t think she was a dear old thing, one bit! To call her Baby a Pig, and to want to chop off Alice’s head!”
Oh, that was only a joke, about chopping off Alice’s head: and as to the Baby——why, it was a Pig, you know! And just look at her smile! Why, it’s wider than all Alice’s head: and yet you can only see half of it!